Government and Politics

AFTER THIRTEEN YEARS of guerrilla warfare, Angola finally escaped
from Portuguese colonial rule in 1975, but with few of the resources
needed to govern an independent nation. When an effort to form a
coalition government comprising three liberation movements failed, a
civil war ensued. The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola
(Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola -- MPLA) emerged from the
civil war to proclaim a Marxist-Leninist one-party state. The strongest
of the disenfranchised movements, the National Union for the Total
Independence of Angola (União Nacional para a Independência Total de
Angola -- UNITA), continued to battle for another thirteen years,
shifting the focus of its opposition from the colonial power to the MPLA
government. In late 1988, the social and economic disorder resulting
from a quarter-century of violence had a pervasive effect on both
individual lives and national politics.

Angola's 1975 Constitution, revised in 1976 and 1980, ratifies the
socialist revolution but also guarantees some rights of private
ownership. The ruling party, renamed the Popular Movement for the
Liberation of Angola-Workers' Party (Movimento Popular de Libertação
de Angola-Partido de Trabalho--MPLA-PT) in 1977, claimed the power of
the state. Although formally subordinate to the party, the government
consolidated substantial power in its executive branch. The president
was head of the MPLA-PT, the government, the military, and most
important bodies within the party and the government. In his first nine
years in office (1979-88), President José Eduardo dos Santos further
strengthened the presidency, broadening the influence of a small circle
of advisers and resisting pressure to concentrate more power within the
MPLA-PT. His primary goal was economic development rather than
ideological rigor, but at the same time dos Santos considered the
MPLA-PT the best vehicle for building a unified, prosperous nation.

Among the first actions taken by the MPLA-PT was its conversion into
a vanguard party to lead in the transformation to socialism. Throughout
the 1980s, the MPLA-PT faced the daunting task of mobilizing the
nation's peasants, most of whom were concerned with basic survival,
subsistence farming, and avoiding the destruction of the ongoing civil
war. Only a small minority of Angolans were party members, but even this
group was torn by internal disputes. Factional divisions were drawn
primarily along racial and ideological lines, but under dos Santos
influence within the MPLAPT gradually shifted from mestiço to black African leadership and from party ideologues to
relative political moderates.

Mass organizations were affiliated with the party in accordance with
Marxist-Leninist dogma. In the face of continued insurgent warfare and
deteriorating living standards, however, many social leaders chafed at
party discipline and bureaucratic controls. Dos Santos worked to build
party loyalty and to respond to these tensions, primarily by attempting
to improve the material rewards of Marxist-Leninist state building. His
greatest obstacle, however, was the destabilizing effect of UNITA and
its South African sponsors; Angola's role as a victim of South Africa's
destructive regional policies was central to its international image
during the 1980s.

In December 1988, Angola, South Africa, and Cuba reached a
long-sought accord that promised to improve Luanda's relations with
Pretoria. The primary goals of the United States-brokered talks were to
end South Africa's illegal occupation of Namibia and remove Cuba's
massive military presence from Angola. Vital economic assistance from
the United States was a corollary benefit of the peace process,
conditioned on Cuba's withdrawal and the MPLA-PT's rapprochement with
UNITA. Despite doubts about the intentions of all three parties to the
accord, international hopes for peace in southwestern Africa were high.